From Christian Love to Progressive Law

The reason for the growth of bureaucracy in American life is a loss of confidence in the spirit of God, al loss of confidence in human dignity, a turning to law from grace. This is a rather obvious historical development that can’t be discussed because we are now a secular nation.  

When grace and spirit are [...]

1901 - The Cat Escapes the Bag

From Diane Ravitch’s Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (essential reading for anybody who wants to understand American education - and that must include teachers! Doesn’t it?):
In 1901, sociologist Edward A. Ross… explained that free public schooling was “an engine of soical control.” It was the job of schools, he wrote, “to collect [...]

Reflections on Progressive Education

For the Progressive theorist, education is one great, extended experiment for which society is bound to pay. Here in America the progressive experiments (it would not be just to call it a single experiment) have continued for nearly 100 years, during which the inevitable resistance and the internal contradictions of progressive theory have convinced many [...]

Faith and Reason: Love or War?

Reflecting on the relation between science and faith, Marty McCarthy, an Episcopal priest and good friend, wrote to me:
“Revealed truth gives us the context for holding scientific (reasoned) truth for what it is.  Knowing how to relate these two is a delicate task, and must be discussed closely, and then spoken to clearly enough [...]

A Booming Baby Looks at the Ten Commandments

George Carlin is occasionally funny, is above average in his intelligence, and falls far short of anything we can call civilized. In short, he’s a lot like the baby boomers and makes a fairly good spokesman for the more tribal of them.
So when I came across a video of his on YouTube describing how to [...]

The Poison of Subjectivism

Correct thinking will not make good men of bad ones; but a purely theoretical error may remove ordinary checks to evil and deprive good intentions of their natural support. An error of this sort is abroad at present… I am referring to Subjectivism.
After studying his environment man has begun to study himself. Up to that [...]

What’s the Big Idea?

The driving impulse of the CiRCE Institute is to figure out what Christian classical education is and to learn how to apply in it ever more complete, authentic, and integrated ways. In my studies and reflection, one astonishing thing has become astonishingly clear to me.
Christian classical education is the education of the idea, whereas conventional [...]

Twelfth Night

January 6th was the last day of the 12 days of Christmas, and last night was, therefore, the twelfth night. In the traditional Christmas calendar, January 6th is Epiphany or Theophany. In fact, for the first few centuries and in some places to this day Epiphany is treated as the more important “Christmas” event.
 Epiphany has [...]

Some Christmas carols

Here’s a set of articles about the stories behind some Christmas carols. It’s the little things that make it interesting, like that Armenian Charles Wesley wrote “Hark how all the welkin rings” and his rival, Calvinist George Whitefield, changed it to the present version. Each story also has some music to sing along to. No piano? No worries. You’ve [...]

Raising Children on Sin

We have received from the Enlightenment a rather boring, two-dimensional view of man. We have learned to regard ourselves in binaries such as mind/body, right brain/left brain, scientific/artistic. On a good day someone might speak of the mind and the heart, but usually by heart he means appetites or emotions, and both of those, on [...]